Cadillac pokes and prods its race drivers in the name of fitness

Monitoring and maintaining health both on the track and off leads to better results for Wayne Taylor Racing

by
Lorraine Sommerfeld | February 22, 2018

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If you’re a car racing fan, it’s no surprise that every single factor of the car’s performance comes under a microscope. No facet is too tiny to be considered in any sport where fractions of a second can mean the difference between victory and catastrophe.

But what about the driver?

For the crew at Wayne Taylor Racing, the focus on the inner workings of their drivers – as they’re driving – is becoming almost as engineered as their race cars. WTR competes with their No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R. in the Prototype Class of the The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship; they’re the defending series champions. 24-hour marathon races like the Rolex 24 at Daytona are not just engineering feats. The drivers swapping out behind the wheel are being tested like any other high calibre athlete.

Jordan Taylor, left, and Renger Van Der Zande, of the Netherlands, look over an item on a mobile phone after a practice session for the IMSA 24-hour race at Daytona International Speedway, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018, in Daytona Beach, Fla.

With that in mind, technical director Brian Pillar began investigating better ways to help his drivers perform behind the wheel. He was speaking at an industry event for team sponsors when the audience, comprised of many medical professionals, turned their attention to the drivers rather than the cars. Pillar realized the questions he was being asked, ranging from fitness to stress levels to hydration and nutrition, were not something the team had delved into. “They’re top athletes, but these doctors and scientists made us aware there was far more for us to know,” he explains.

They teamed up with Dr. Ed Potkanowicz at Ohio Northern University. Potkanowica is a professor of exercise physiology. The team at ONU gathered data from the racers, including heart rate and temperature at every phase from resting, to during a race, to afterward. Drivers were kitted out with measuring devices, and the information eventually led Potkanowicz to a formula – the Psychological Strain Index of one to ten. Over six is considered highly stressed, and a continual feedback from an armband drivers wear allows the team to make a call to swap out drivers to maintain peak fitness, both physical and physiological. When race car cockpits can reach almost 50 degrees Celsius and a driver is strapped in for hours at peak focus at high speeds, Pillar knew he had to take advantage of any edge to keep his drivers not just competitive, but safe. Cars have long had sensors built in; now so do the drivers.

As the feedback mounted, the medical team as well as the race team found themselves looking deeper into the driver component. They were approached by a company, CoreSyte, who wanted to know if they were interested in monitoring their drivers’ sweat. By now, the team had seen the benefits of increased driver feedback and team drivers Jordan Taylor and Renger Van Der Zande were happy to show me the patches last week. The ovals stick to their forearms, and measure electrolyte output during a race.

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Everybody sweats differently, and they sweat out different things. Having the ability to study through the patches what has been lost has proven to be a boon to the drivers. “We have a tube in our helmets that draws from a personalized combination when we hit a button on the steering wheel,” explains Jordan Taylor. Some drivers need more potassium, or sodium or just water. Specially made Gatorade pods – there are nine different packs – provide bespoke combinations depending on the individual. Back in the pits, the crew is always in contact with their driver via a headset, but now they can know it’s time to tell them to take a drink when they need to replenish much needed electrolyte losses. The goal is to make the patches work in real time.

The young men behind the wheel laugh at being called guinea pigs. “Nobody liked the needle thing,” laughs Taylor. Van Der Zande winces a little. A hard needle attached to a plug the size of a thick dime was jammed into their upper arms to measure glucose and carbs. “That was a little uncomfortable to have in your arm as your drive,” they admitted. Then they point to a small, dense capsule on the table. “They had to swallow so it could track more information,” says Pillar. It came out the way you think it would come out, but the medical team is exploring other ways to gather data due to the danger of having something metal in the driver-athletes’ systems interfering with an MRI should it be required.

They’ve had their fingers pricked for blood, they’ve done spit tests, been poked and prodded and measured before, during and after a race. There is talk of investigating the impact of G forces in racing and also concussions in the event of a crash. We’ve long enjoyed the benefits that elite racing can bring to the cars we drive every day. Similarly, new advances in medical innovation will also lead us to thank the young drivers of Wayne Taylor Racing, who willingly embrace the efforts to understand and protect the most important part of any race team: the drivers.